


Organized Lightning

by warriorpoet



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Gen, Illness, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 04:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17036960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warriorpoet/pseuds/warriorpoet
Summary: Today was the third time this week that Chuck had excused himself from a meeting with a polite grimace and a line of sweat beaded at his hairline. Maybe the tenth time in the past month.Howard had lost count.





	Organized Lightning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollenius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollenius/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, hollenius!

Howard’s attention was fractured.

He was listening, more or less, to Kim’s status update on depositions in the Vogelman case—and, for the life of him, in that moment he could barely remember what case that was—while he watched the sweat beading at Chuck’s hairline. 

The thermostat was at a comfortable 72 degrees, and Chuck’s teeth were clenched.

Chuck’s fingers were curled at the sides of his legal pad, index finger and thumb tapping out a jittery, impossible to discern rhythm. 

Howard could almost make it out when he realised the conference room had gone silent.

“Howard?” Kim prompted. “Was there anything else you needed—” 

“Chuck, did you have anything to add?” Howard directed across the table.

Chuck appeared to come back from somewhere far away. He looked at Howard with stark terror in his eyes for the briefest hint of second. Then he blinked, and it was gone, replaced with a forced smile.

“I apologize, everyone, but you’ll have to excuse me. I’m still feeling a little under the weather and… and, Howard, you can take it from here?”

Chuck stumbled as he stood, and Howard forced a smile of his own. 

“No problem.”

It was the third time this week. Maybe the tenth in the past month. Howard had lost count.

***

Howard could feel eyes on him as he headed from the conference room to Chuck’s office, the chatter of gossip falling to silence as he approached, then rising back up in his wake.

He was not one given to panic, but the ringing claxon call of alarm in his mind, in his heart, was impossible to ignore. 

Chuck’s secretary rose from her seat as Howard approached.

“Mr Hamlin, Mr McGill asked not to be disturbed—”

“It’s fine, Nina. Why don’t you take your lunch break now?”

“But… it’s not even ten thirty.”

Howard smiled, teeth clenched. “Take a long lunch.”

He waited for the eternity it took for Nina to gather her things and slink off toward the bullpen, his eyes fixed on the nameplate by Chuck’s door. Howard felt like he’d been staring at that nameplate, or some version of it, for most of his life. That it had dangled in front of him like a life preserver out at sea for as long as he could remember. How many times had he knocked on Chuck’s office door? Hundreds? Thousands? 

Never like this. Never feeling this sick about it, never with the only question on his lips being _What the hell are you doing?!_

Nina disappeared into the gossip void, and Howard finally knocked. 

“Chuck?”

Silence. He tried the door and felt the solid weight of the lock staying firm. 

“Chuck, may I speak with you for a moment?”

The voice came faintly from the other side. “Now isn’t the best time, Howard.”

Howard glanced around. All the lingering gazes were quickly averted once more.

“It won’t take long. I wanted to get your opinion on—” 

“Would you mind sending a memo? Now is really not a good time.”

Howard leaned in to the closed door. “Chuck, it’s this Vogelman thing. I could really use your advice. I don’t think it can wait. I’m sorry if isn’t a good time for you, but I need—”

The lock clicked open, and the door opened a crack. Chuck’s eyes, bloodshot and hooded, blinked out at him. 

“Fine. Okay. Come in.”

Howard slipped through the narrow, open space, as if opening the door any further would knock Chuck off his feet and topple him to the ground. 

As it was, Chuck felt his way back to the couch with a grimace and dropped to the slick leather piece by piece, like his bones were disintegrating in strict anatomical order.

Howard blinked, trying to adjust to the bright slits of sunlight cutting through the closed blinds, harsher than necessary with all the lights in the room shut off.

“Migraine?” Howard asked.

“No,” Chuck huffed. “It’s – I don’t… what did you want to ask about Vogelman? I thought that was all going well—”

“It is. That’s not why I’m here.”

Howard’s eyes adjusted to the light just in time to clearly see the plea in Chuck’s eyes. 

_Don’t ask_.

Gently, carefully, Howard ignored it. “What’s going on, Chuck?”

“Like you said. Migraine.”

“Admittedly, I’m not a doctor, but as far as I’m aware a migraine won’t have you regularly bolting out of meetings for weeks on end.”

Chuck’s fingers flexed in and out of a fist on his knee. “It hasn’t been that many times –”

“And that’s just what I’ve personally witnessed. If breakroom gossip is to be believed, it’s a lot more than that.”

The silence was heavy.

“Chuck, as your partner, I’m obviously concerned on an operational level, but more than that… as a _friend_ , if there’s something, if there’s anything…”

“There is something. But I don’t know what, and… I wake up, and I feel fine, but throughout the day, it’s… I’m nauseous, constantly, my ears are ringing, it’s like my brain is vibrating inside my skull. I can’t breathe. My heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest.”

Howard watched as Chuck seemed to sink further into the slick leather with each subsequent symptom. Howard sat, and it felt suddenly absurd, the set-up. Chuck on the couch, pulling into himself with a grimace, Howard sitting in a chair by his head. A shrink and his patient. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. Not with them. Not ever.

But he had to ask. “Could it be a panic attack?”

“No,” Chuck’s voice was emphatic. Period, underlined. “All day, every day? Now, suddenly? For what reason? This is physical, it’s purely physical. It has to be.”

“True, but it has been a rough few years for you. My father’s death, Rebecca, your mother passing. And even Jimmy, having to make that call on hiring him—”

“That isn’t what this is. I’ve had stress my entire life. This doesn’t just happen, out of the blue. And the symptoms… it makes no sense, Howard, trust me.”

Howard decided to drop it, to sidestep. “And you’ve seen someone, obviously?”

“Nobody with answers.”

Howard silently watched Chuck, his body sliced in fragments by the light creeping through the blinds, a minute twitch in his right eyelid that seemed to work in tandem with the ticking of the clock.

“We need you, Chuck,” he finally said. It wasn’t quite what he wanted to say, but close enough. “Let’s work something out. If you need to take a few weeks, to dedicate yourself to finding out what the hell is going on, we can do that. I’m happy to jump in where you need me – to help you delegate, to take over anything you feel comfortable with handing off.”

Chuck nodded, slightly, brief and flickering enough that it could have been mistaken for another involuntary twitch. 

“Was there anything that you did need to discuss on Vogelman? I know we’ve talked strategy on this a dozen times, but if there is anything else you wanted to run by me—”

Howard stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He could feel the tension there, like a live wire come loose in a storm, anchorless, ready to strike. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? Take the rest of the week if you need it. I can hold down the fort for a few days.”

“I know you can, Howard.”

In spite of himself, Howard smiled. If he could put Chuck’s mind at ease about keeping the firm working without him for a few weeks, it was the least he could do. Chuck could focus on his health—the tests, the diagnosis, the treatment, whatever it might be. Howard knew he’d keep things going until Chuck was well.

He knew it, because Chuck knew it.

Howard kept a hand on Chuck’s shoulder as he walked with him to the door, the live wires crackling under his fingertips. “Are you all right to get home? Should I call you a cab? Or what about Jimmy?”

“No. No need. I’m fine, I’m fine to drive.”

“Okay. Call me if you need anything,” Howard said.

Chuck paused just outside his office, the sudden glare of the fluorescent lights washing the color from his face. He nodded, smiled tightly. “I’ll speak to you soon, Howard.”

Howard watched him go, the tension slowly seeping from his shoulders. A few days. A few weeks at most. 

Then everything would be back to normal.

***

It was two months before Jimmy called Howard.

“There’s some kind of specialist in Denver I’m taking him up to see,” Jimmy said.

“He can’t go on his own? His condition has deteriorated that much?” Howard asked.

“It’s not that, it’s… I don’t know. The doc at UNM said maybe it wasn’t a good idea for him to fly. So, I’m gonna drive him up there. It’s… probably not a good idea for him to drive himself either.”

Howard wanted details. He wanted evidence. He wanted to hear for himself that Chuck was okay. 

“Chuck couldn’t have called to give me an update himself? Is he really that ill?”

“He… doesn’t like using the phone so much anymore. He just asked me to call you to give you an update, but there’s nothing really to tell right now. But, I’ve told you that, so consider yourself updated.”

“May I ask why he isn’t able to call me himself? Jimmy, I’m concerned, and—”

“Listen, Howard, I’m not super jazzed about having to talk to you either, so let’s consider this a mutual inconvenience and move on.”

A slight breeze rustled the trees as Howard stared out his office windows. A few leaves came loose and floated downwards, disappearing from sight as Howard’s gaze hit the floor. 

Chuck, stuck in a car with Jimmy for damn near seven hours? What could be so wrong as to necessitate Chuck concluding that _that_ was the only option?

“Please give him my regards,” Howard said, fear gnawing at his stomach.

Jimmy grunted something Howard didn’t quite hear, and the line went dead.

***

It was a letter from Chuck that finally gave Howard something of an explanation.

A letter. Typewritten. Howard had sudden flashbacks to college and the clunky Smith Corona he’d been all too happy to ditch for a word processor by the time he got to law school.

“How much Liquid Paper do you go through in a year?” he remembered Chuck saying once, gently teasing him as his red pen circled another typographical error in a brief. “It’s the details, Howard, the argument is just as much in the presentation as it is in your conviction.”

Everything was so different back then.

 _Electromagnetic hypersensitivity_ , Chuck’s letter said. He described the tests he’d been through, MRIs and CTs that set his body alight, sent a drilling pain shooting from his brainstem. The answer was to avoid anything with an electric current: lights, computers, phones, anything and everything essential to his daily life, was the impression that Howard got.

Chuck wouldn’t be able to work at HHM for the foreseeable future, he said. His recovery would take time. He asked Howard for his understanding, assured Howard that now the problem had a name, he could get to work fixing it.

Howard gently folded the letter back into its envelope and slipped it under his blotter. He started making phone calls.

***

Howard reached for the doorbell and found only bare wiring to greet him. His hand hovered for a moment, index finger pointing uselessly, before curling into a fist and knocking.

After a moment, he could hear Chuck faintly making his way through the house. “Didn’t I give you a key—”

The door opened, and Chuck froze in mid-sentence. “Howard,” he said, and stepped back from the threshold as if he had been struck.

“Hello, Chuck. It’s great to see you. May I come in?”

“I—yes, of course. Just, if—if you don’t mind, please, could you leave all your electronics back there? In the mailbox? Cell phone, watch, key fob, anything you have on you with a battery. I’m sorry, but—”

Howard fumbled in his pockets, already heading back down to the sidewalk. “No, of course, God, I should’ve thought.” 

Metal clattered on metal, and Howard hurried back. Chuck hesitantly stepped toward the stoop and gestured to the side.

“It’s a grounding rod. It will get rid of any static electricity. If you don’t mind…?”

Howard felt his hand shake as he touched the rod. Maybe there really was something to it, the effects of electricity.

Chuck let Howard pass into the house and closed the door quickly and firmly behind him. 

It took a moment for Howard’s eyes to adjust before he saw the wires hanging from the light fixtures. He followed Chuck through the house and noted the absences one by one: the voids in the kitchen where the oven and refrigerator once fit, the space left by the stereo that used to play softly through Chuck and Rebecca’s dinner parties, the computer and printer missing from Chuck’s desk.

“I wasn’t expecting any visitors. Please excuse the mess,” Chuck said. “I’m still… reworking things. To accommodate for my needs.”

“It must be… an adjustment,” Howard said.

Chuck made a noise somewhere between laughter and strangulation. 

“I’m sorry, Chuck,” Howard suddenly felt awkward in his presence in a way he hadn’t for decades. “I should have let you know I was going to come by.”

“How? How could you? Should we correspond by mail and take weeks to get anything done? Carrier pigeon, perhaps? Tin cans and string, like ten-year-olds in their treehouse?” 

Howard cast a level stare at Chuck. He’d take the outburst. He’d taken worse before. 

Chuck’s gaze dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry, Howard.”

“I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be for you, Chuck.”

“It is… an adjustment. Yes. It’s an adjustment.”

They stood in silence together for a moment, dust motes floating in the daylight that slipped in from the outside world, buzzing beyond the walls. 

“I’ve arranged a stipend,” Howard said, which was more or less the reason he was there in the first place. “If you want to change the frequency of the cheques, we can do that. I’ll bring them by. It will give us a chance to talk, to keep you up to date on what’s happening so you’re caught up when you’re well enough to come back to HHM.”

“Thank you, Howard. With any luck it will only last a few months.”

“I hope so. We need you, Chuck. I need you.” Howard smiled and clapped an arm on Chuck’s shoulder. He was relieved that Chuck didn’t tense under him, that the crackle of Howard’s nerves, the firing of synapses in his brain, wasn’t like a poison to him. 

Human electricity seemed to be okay.

Chuck still couldn’t quite meet his eyes, so Howard kept pushing to fill the silence. “In the meantime, though, these visits will be nice. We haven’t spent time together outside of the office in a while. It might be therapeutic for both of us. One can only hope.” He moved his hand away and tucked it safely into his pocket. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Is there anything you need, or—”

“I didn’t want you to see me like this. I tried to not let it interfere with my work for so long. Months, before we had that conversation and I took leave. I tried, Howard, and I’m sorry…” Chuck trailed off, shaking his head. “I didn’t want you to see me like this,” he said again.

“Chuck. You have a physical condition. You needed to find out what was wrong. I’m here for you. Anything you need, until you get well. Which, like you said, we can hope won’t be so long now that we know what the problem is.” 

“Right.” Chuck nodded. “Well. I’m being a terrible host! Do you have time to stay a while? Take a seat. Can I make you some tea?”

“For you, Chuck, I have all the time in the world. Tea would be wonderful, thank you.”

Howard sat as Chuck quickly headed for the kitchen. 

The dust motes spun in the air, and the silence sank heavily to the floor.

A few months, Howard reminded himself. Everything would be fine.

Until then, he’d pass the time with his friend.


End file.
